A little Dominican hospitality goes a long way!

It is so funny to me because my days are sometimes so uneventful and then there are days so full and weekends so exciting that its hard to describe in just a quick note... Before we go on the adventure of my past two weekends Here is a little update on me.. I have had a pretty ugly cough the last two months and after the direction of my mother I whent to the doctor ...they sent me to get some x-rays of my chest and lungs and a blood test...Results are that I have bacteria spots in my lungs and my bronchial tubes( how do you even spell that!) and my lungs are inflamed. They gave me an injection in my butt! and I cant even explain how bad it hurt!!!! hehehe im on lots of meds and hopefully ill be on the mend!...On to the more fun stuff...We have made some great Dominican friends and this group goes to PUCMM ( our university) and they are from a small town outside Santiago called Mao. They decided to take us to the mountains to go camping! saturday morning we all meet in mao, in this guys house we had just met, and him and his mom ....complete strangers..made us a great pancake breakfast with eggs and oatmeal and orange juice :) ..then all nine of us pile into a suburban, and speed off down probally the most trerous roads I have ever been on, blaring merengue the whole way. About half way we all had to go to the bathroom so they stop at a gas stationa and we figure that there would be a bathroom there like normal, ...no they take us to this little house and asked this little old lady sitting on the front porch if we could use their bathroom, and of course she usherd us into her home giving us all kisses, and saying "God bless you," I mean im sure its not every day a group of five gringas arrive in her living room. The most hilarious part was that she had one bathroom that of wich was being occupied by her daughter taking a shower and she kicked her daughter out of the shower, i mean dripping wet and soapy, so we could use the bathroom! And then her husband, this adorable wrinkled old man, walkes in his eyes the size of baseballs, and just keeps saying "God does bless" and gave us kisses, candies and huge mangos for the road, and inviting us for dinner, and when we greatfully turned down dinner, tried to get us to stay for coffee. We eventually had to be on our way and they told us that we were their family and were welcome at any time, it was precious! We arrive at the most beautiful river so alone it felt great! There were huge rocks that we jumped off of into the water..maybe like ...i dont even know how high because im bad at guessing height but high enough that it was like 5 seconds of freefall..its was scary! but GREAT! ..They made rice and chicken ever the fire, and we slept by the river..or at least tried to sleep... we got up at sunrise they made us breakfast and we floated around the river some more, learned some dominican card games, got lots of mosquito bites it was great! I am allways just so impressed at how they take it upon themselves to take such good care of us! It was a great experience, and just cool to be with such warm open people!